Emmjae
Well-known member
Hi folks,
I have been experimenting on some jeweler’s dirt I got from my local small town jewelry store. This is the dirt that was from his buffing wheel area. I received approximately 4.9oz. and it contains a lot of buffing compounds and fuzz from his wheel.
I started out by sifting this dirt to remove the fuzz and larger chunks. I then ground the chunks and combined to the already sifted fine dirt. I took 1oz. of this dirt along with the fuzz and burned it down, ground it to a fine power and incinerated till it glowed orange in a dry melting dish. I then ran a magnet through the power and removed anything that stuck to it and set it aside for later.
I transferred the remaining powder to a 2L beaker and added 250ml of my cold recipe nitric acid diluted with a little distilled water. Set it on my hotplate/stirrer with a watchglass and set to a low heat and slow stir. I waited till the reaction stopped and added another 250ml of my diluted cold recipe nitric acid. After the reaction stopped I ended up with a lime green colored solution. I’m thinking good, I should have removed most of the garbage metals along with some silver.
I tested the solution with stannous in a white plastic spoon and on a filter paper. It showed very positive for gold. The color went instant jet-black. I have to assume something in the powder created an AR solution. Any idea what might have caused this???
My plan was to siphon off this solution and go straight to AR with the remaining powder in the same beaker. I have since done this and my AR was a beautiful golden yellow. Was able to control my nitric additions so no denox was needed. Have chilled with ice, filtered and dropped my gold with SMB with no problems.
Should I have started with HCL to remove my base metals? I figured nitric would do a much better job of removing the base metals but now I’m not so sure. I am now in the long process of denoxing my green solution by evaporation and addition of HCL. Any suggestions would be very much appreciated.
Thanks, Mike
I have been experimenting on some jeweler’s dirt I got from my local small town jewelry store. This is the dirt that was from his buffing wheel area. I received approximately 4.9oz. and it contains a lot of buffing compounds and fuzz from his wheel.
I started out by sifting this dirt to remove the fuzz and larger chunks. I then ground the chunks and combined to the already sifted fine dirt. I took 1oz. of this dirt along with the fuzz and burned it down, ground it to a fine power and incinerated till it glowed orange in a dry melting dish. I then ran a magnet through the power and removed anything that stuck to it and set it aside for later.
I transferred the remaining powder to a 2L beaker and added 250ml of my cold recipe nitric acid diluted with a little distilled water. Set it on my hotplate/stirrer with a watchglass and set to a low heat and slow stir. I waited till the reaction stopped and added another 250ml of my diluted cold recipe nitric acid. After the reaction stopped I ended up with a lime green colored solution. I’m thinking good, I should have removed most of the garbage metals along with some silver.
I tested the solution with stannous in a white plastic spoon and on a filter paper. It showed very positive for gold. The color went instant jet-black. I have to assume something in the powder created an AR solution. Any idea what might have caused this???
My plan was to siphon off this solution and go straight to AR with the remaining powder in the same beaker. I have since done this and my AR was a beautiful golden yellow. Was able to control my nitric additions so no denox was needed. Have chilled with ice, filtered and dropped my gold with SMB with no problems.
Should I have started with HCL to remove my base metals? I figured nitric would do a much better job of removing the base metals but now I’m not so sure. I am now in the long process of denoxing my green solution by evaporation and addition of HCL. Any suggestions would be very much appreciated.
Thanks, Mike